Much of the work of the healer actually has to do with teaching and learning. Many sangomas do not practise ‘healing’ at all, but rather specialise as teachers, or as herbalists. For them, the knowledge of bungoma is an end in itself. Learning bungoma eventually leads to initiation into a ‘school’ of sangomas under a teacher.

The knowledge sangomas acquire, however, is diverse and depends critically on the gobela (teacher). As in any educational system, not all teachers are competent. In many cases, the lithwasana changes teachers or even returns for further education under a new gobela once graduated and inducted into the mpandze ‘alumni’ group.

But whatever the quality of education, the fact that knowledge has been imparted and received confers expertise on the aspiring sangoma, who becomes, though education and practice, a technical expert. It is precisely the expertise of the sangoma that confers legitimate authority or capacity (emandla) and gives the sangoma a special presence (isithunzi). The expertise in the person of a specialist is one of the most important criteria for a healer to be taken seriously. It is also one of the primary characteristics of any practice of magic, especially in the context of craft and healing, as many have remarked (Childe 1949; Malinowski 1935; Rowlands and Warnier 1993; Schwemmer 2011; Tambiah 1968).

Sangomas are initiated only after experiencing a process of ukuthwasa, ‘enlightenment’, or ‘lightening’ that is described as being ‘under water’. .

They say that is ‘not like being under water, but being under water’ (Chapter 3). The process through which a student learns to be a sangoma, that is to acquire expertise of bungoma, is a hard one, but so is the role of the gobela. The student will have to learn to dance in the prescribed way to the rhythms of the ngoma, to enter trance and to learn from dreams. The student will also acquire a basic botanical knowledge of herbs and trees and of the animal products and minerals that go into healing potions. The process of teaching and learning is also never complete since the senior teacher can never transmit all that he or she knows. The initiated student will continue to learn over the duration of his or her career.